And We Have a Surgery Date

Little Max is scheduled to have his pulmonary band surgery on Tuesday morning at 7:30AM. Things have been going well in the NICU. They have noticed an upward trend in his oxygen saturation as well his respiratory rate; both signaling that his heart is working a little too hard lately. The cardiology team has reassured us that the surgery should help bring those two numbers down and allow Max's heart to work more efficiently. The Neonatology/Cardiology team decided to increase his Lasix (diuretic) to three times a day in order to help improve these numbers until he makes it to surgery. Little man is a great eater (just like his brother and sister) and has been downing my pumped breast milk. Unfortunately even with his appetite and my supply, he was still losing weight. Many cardiac babies have trouble gaining weight because their hearts have to work extra hard which in turn burns more calories. In order to combat this downward trend, they made the decision to fortify my breastmilk with formula to give him an extra 4 calories per feeding. We are happy to report that after one day of fortified feedings our little man gained 40 grams (1.5 oz)! Little Max also got a special bilirubin blanket to help with his jaundice. Luke always said he wanted a "blue baby" as blue is his favorite color. We tried explaining to Luke that we don't want a "blue baby" but thanks to Max's Neonatologist, Dr. Van Meurs, Luke finally got his blue baby brother!

Luke's "blue" baby brother

Sometimes it is easy to get discouraged having a baby in intensive care, but Dr. Van Meurs remarked to Brad and I today that Mighty Max gets an A+ for his performance in the NICU thus far. Considering his cardiac anomalies he really is surpassing all of their expectations. We hope and pray that are little fighter continues on this path!

The best kind of snuggles!

Baby blues

Thanks for all the kind words and prayers. Please keep little Max, the surgical team, and the rest of our family in your prayers and thoughts on Tuesday. We know the first few days after his surgery are going to be rough but we try to stay positive and look forward to coming home in the next week or two. Brad and I have been missing Molly and Luke like crazy and we are looking forward to having our family all under one roof!

3/5 of our family